NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: LOWER EAST SIDE; The Battle Is Joined, But Is the War Already Lost?

By ALEX MINDLIN

Published: September 11, 2005

The trim green awning that wraps around a corner of Delancey and Allen Streets delivers an unmistakable message: Starbucks is coming to the Lower East Side.

Perhaps predictably, in an area most famous for its hipsters, its radical politics and its mom-and-pop stores, the arrival of a chain that in some minds is synonymous with corporate expansion and homogenization has set some residents fuming.

Yet the truth is that Starbucks will be of a piece with the development planned for the neighborhood. From under Starbucks's awning, for example, one will be able to look to the north to a 19-story hotel on Allen Street, and east to a towering residential structure.

''It's going to be a whole new landscape,'' said Dara Lehon, director of marketing for the Lower East Side Business Improvement District.

If developers' plans are approved, luxury high-rises will sprout around the neighborhood in the next few years, dwarfing its tenement skyline. According to applications filed with the city's Department of Buildings, two of the largest projects are a 23-story building on Ludlow Street and the Allen Street hotel, part of a blocklong complex that developers say will have bars, restaurants and an outdoor pool.

Even so, the notion of a Starbucks in the 10002 ZIP code has struck a nerve with Deanna Zandt, a blogger who moved to Clinton Street four years ago. Ms. Zandt writes for the left-leaning news site AlterNet, where she described the Starbucks as a ''monstrosity.''

''I moved here because I wanted to be a radical artist, and I wanted to feel like I wasn't crazy,'' she said. ''If we let this slip away, and we say, 'It's gentrification; it happens everywhere,' where are the 18-year-olds going to go?''

Asked about the company's move to the Lower East Side, Sherry Thurmon, a regional spokeswoman for Starbucks, said only that Starbucks ''looks to open new locations where our customers want and expect us.'' But it will be within sight of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which lures upward of 10,000 people a month to the neighborhood.

Many of the museum's visitors have long frequented 88 Orchard, an airy, glass-walled coffee shop down the street. Tara Katz, the coffee shop's co-owner, predicted that her local customers were unlikely to stray, but an employee, Jessie Banning, expressed doubt about the out-of-town clientele. ''A lot of people come in and say, 'Can you tell us where to find the Dunkin' Donuts?''' she said. ''I'm like, 'What do I look like, chopped liver?''' ALEX MINDLIN

Photo: A planned Starbucks has galvanized resistance among hipsters. (Photo by James Estrin/The New York Times)